For the love of grandparents!

Grandparents are the best! I know some of my favorite memories are when I would visit my Gran and we would spend all day sewing, and talking. I even still have some of the books we read together of which I truly cherish.

When our little guest of honor Nynika visited her grandparents for the first time (all the way to India no less!), we knew it was important to make it super special! Set in a gracious tennis club, there were chevrons and damasks (family favorites of course!), and pink and lime green abound.

As the guests arrived they were greeted with drinks and yummy bites and found a place a resting place for their gifts. Complete with butterflies (is it really a girly party without butterflies?!), a crepe rosette bunting, as well as, chevron and lime running throughout it really set the cheery tone. Such an adorable way to begin their time with Nynika.

The guest tables were clearly a lovely sight! Covered chairs, layered linens, darling pots of fresh flowers..oh my! Such a beautiful way to meet their bundle of love for the first time.

The photo booth area was a hit with the younger set! They were so creative as they tried on various crowns, beards, glasses, brocade turbans, and such. I loved it how the kids hammed it up for the camera!

No party is ever complete without a gracious thank you to all of the guests.  The custom made boxes of chocolates hit just the right tone and left the guests savoring their time with their new little love.  It was lovely how the grandmom had even saved Nynika's mom's first doll and stroller! And so, there she was.. bidding adieu to the guests.

Overall, a sweet event for one adored little girl! Now I am off to go relive some of my favorite memories with my grandparents....What are some of yours?

naughty and nice..

A very fun shower was recently hosted for an angelic mom and a devilish dad-to-be to celebrate the arrival of their precious little baby girl. The theme was 'Angels and Demons' and we were called on to put together favors for the event.

As we learned that the new parents-to-be are foodies, we wanted the favors to reflect this as well. Pairing some devilishly good chocolate with some very healthy, 'angelic' nut mix, we kept true to the theme. The pairings were packaged in custom boxes.. the lids had sweet, cheery patterns and they all had a hint of pink to highlight the li'l girl on the way.
 

The hostess and most importantly, the preggie mamma LOVED what they say and we hear that there was a bit of a melee with the guests attempting to pick their fav boxes. 

Barca, Barca, Barca!

Parties to celebrate the special men in our lives can be such a challenge. My husband usually wants a low key birthday, but this year he made an exception. After a bit of thought, he decided that racing go carts would be an awesome way to spend some quality dude time. Knowing that he loves the Barcelona soccer team, I knew that it would be a very Barca party!

As the guests arrived, we had them check in at the Go Kart track and suit up. We listened to a safety video and then they were given these:

As a rule, the go kart track gives plain black head socks to wear underneath the helmet. Just to make it a bit more fun and personal, I went a couple days prior to the party and picked up our guests plain black head socks. Then, I fired up my handy dandy sewing machine and appliqued each of their names on them.  The guys really dug it and it turned out to be a perfect party favor!

It really was a fast and furious ride on the go karts! We did practice laps and then did a qualifying lap which gave us our poll position and then we had the final race. Everyone had a grand ole time and we finished off with a metal ceremony for the top 3 finishers. After all of that fun and burning rubber it was totally time for some nosh. We had all of Patrick's favorite foods- pizza, wings, Caesar salad, and garlic cheese bread, and of course beer. 

I wanted the dessert table to be a reflection of Patrick's favorite loves so I decorated it with his triathlon metals, favorite candy (I used his bike helmets as bowls), pictures of him, and thank you cards from the various patients he has helped over the years (he is a nurse). It was great to see his eyes light up as others would ask him about his various metals and competitions. We are just so proud of him! He recently traveled to Barcelona to see his favorite team compete (yes, he loves this team THAT much!) so I knew the cake had to honor some of the experiences he had there. I emailed a couple of pictures to this awesome bakery called the cake gallery  for his cake (we did a chocolate cake with fudge filling and white icing per Patrick's request). Not only did they do a fantastic job of depicting Patrick with his favorite player - Lionel Messi of course!, but they were even able to do a 3-D soccer ball that totally looked like the one he brought back for our sons. That cake was a total crowd pleaser.. sooo yummy! We also had another table with all of Patrick's college photos and honors throughout the years. Amazing to see a visual depiction of his journey throughout the years.

The guests also left with little mason jars of cake with the Barcelona crest on the top. Except for one of the guests who was a Real Madrid fan, so I made sure his favor had his favorite team on it instead!

As you can see we had a great time practicing our Ninja moves for the camera. All in all it was great fun and I know one special guy had a good time too :)

Bottles and Blockprinting!

We recently planned a lovely baby shower for Jamie, a glowing mom-to-be. Her request was that it be stylish and elegant with a bit of baby sprinkled in. And, that's exactly what we focused on.

Here is an adorable centerpiece from one of the tables. Love the wagon with presents and block art piece arrangement!

As it was a spring shower, we pulled hues from the season to create a cheery color story - lime, orange, turquoise and a touch of warm yellow. And, since she is a modern mom-to-be, the fingerprint for the event included a pair of baby bottles - clean, simple, bold and adorable! Lime and turquoise stripes framed the signage and ribbons in baby bottles added a nice accent. 

As the celebration got underway, the rooms were filled with a lot of love, laughter and conversation. It was a mid afternoon affair with a delicious menu that included freekeh salad, crudites and mini fromage blanc & grilled asparagus sandwiches from Bi Rite market.

Jamie loves bundt cakes, so we had this specialty bakery whip up some bundt-inis for the event! We arranged the bundt cakes on a tower and placed a larger cake on top with a beautiful peony topper. The guests simply adored the bundtinis! Especially the lemon.  Salted caramel, raspberry, and chocolate macaroons, short breads and luscious fruit skewers rounded off the dessert menu. The salted caramel macaroons were such a hit!

As the guests noshed, they wrote li'l notes for Jamie and the baby to be. The wishes for the baby had fill in the blanks that included "I hope you love...", "I hope you get...". Jamie's friends and family had great fun coming up with all sorts of inventive wishes! 

Jamie loves handcrafted items and loved the idea of her guests doing a block printing craft to welcome her new bundle of joy in style. The guests 'left their mark' on onesies, bibs and little t-shirts and had a collection of handmade wood blocks and rubber stamps to select from. After completing their work of art, the items were hung to dry on the tree so all of her guests could see the fruits of their labor.

We also engaged the guests in a very fun raffle that had them digging in their purses for blue credit cards, wet naps, pacifiers, gold keys and more!

In the end, it was a beautiful afternoon with loving friends and family. Jamie enjoyed every moment celebrating her bump and the baby that's on its way. And we absolutely loved planning every minute detail.

It's a merry Cars party!

Birthdays in our house have always been a big deal. I am totally in love with throwing parties, so this year when my son said he wanted a Pixar Cars party, I was so excited! I saw how he carried his little friend McQueen with him from day to night, so I knew he would really like a party dedicated to his best buddy. Here are some of what we did:

I opted for checkered sashes on the chairs with a table runner that was sewn to look like a road. The scene setter was a great backdrop for pictures and Aiden couldn't get over the lifesize Mcqueen!

For the table centerpiece, I found these fun printable letters that were a road theme, so I made large 'Aiden' lollipops out of paper and placed them in balloon weights to anchor them down. A simple but fun way to have an interesting table scape.

The dessert table was an extravaganza of all of Aiden's favorite things! Fruit, gum balls, lollipops, chocolate, cookies, etc. And cake of course!

 The route 66 signage was a throw back from the first movie and a trip we once did across country. The food had names inspired by the movie and all things related to cars (chocolate biscotti were dipsticks, rock candy on a stick were sir axle rods, etc).

Aiden is totally in love with the Dinoco version of McQueen so I knew he had to be part of the cake. I made this multiple layer extravaganza with white cake and lemon curd. The icing was butter cream and some of the layers were encased in fondant. A road running down it with some of Aiden's favorite characters completed the look. He couldn't wait to get his hands on his new little buddy. 

We made his bunting using checkered bunting and added a crepe paper element that was sewn so as to ruffle. On the signage itself we used the Cars font (Magneto) and if you look close you can see each letter has a road encircling it. So fun!

The drink table had a "Taste In" bunting (after Fillmore's Organic Fuel) and the table was topped with peace sign fabric. I found this cute little Dinoco label from the movie and knew I had to do something fun with it.What better than to make mini apple juice cans into oil drums! And the kids totally loved their Dinoco juice! The tower was made out of a couple of boxes wrapped in craft paper and styled with Aiden's logo and checkered flags. We also had orange juice, milk, and for the young at heart some leaded fuel (aka Starbucks espresso shots). The drinks were paired with black and white paper straws which added a nice touch.

Sarge's Supply Hut housed the favor boxes which were little race tracks with cars and checkered flag with each child's name. Each favor box was individualized to the child's interests (sewn car rolls for the automobile obsessed, dress up tutus for the girls who were into princesses, invisible writing sets for school age kids, etc). Each guest also received a booklet titled "Aiden's Favorite Things" which talked about his favorite things, had some activity pages, a CD with songs he liked, and pictures of all of the party guests (because they are Aiden's favorites too!).

We had all of the food at Flo's V8 cafe. I read somewhere that when designing the Flo's V8 cafe sign, they wanted the sign to be reminiscent of an air filter.  The woman at the auto parts store was super kind with helping me find just the right one to compliment the Flo's V8 cafe sign I made. Aiden liked it so much that he wanted it for his room!

This was a breakfast time event, so all of the food was centered around that. We had mini leaning towers of tires (Luigi's Special), quiche, hash brown in diner boats with a Flo's logo sticker, fruit kabobs, cereal (spare tires), muffins (I used one of Aiden's racetracks to arrange them), and yogurt parfaits. There were also other sundry cookies, breads, and the like. The wrapped flatware had napkin rings that had a road pattern on them and were placed in an oil pan.

Then on to the games! We had car races using Aiden's blue track (www.blutrack.com) which did a loop d'loop. One of the older kids loved manning the checkered flag at the finish line. Above is a picture of the leader board that we made with all the kids names on it. They kept going up to the board and pointing out who they wanted to race next (soo cute!). After the races, we had a medal ceremony for the winners (essentially everyone!) where the parents were the paparazzi and the kids posing in front of the scene setter.

Over at Ramone's body shop we had all kinds of fun!

The kids painted wooden cars and got Cars tattoos. The day before the party Aiden and I made the Ramone's cardboard cut out together (you can see a bit of it in the background). They also had a little area for Izzy's Curio shop where they decorated 'license plates' (foam rectangles with stickers, stamps, alphabet letters, etc). We also did a McQueen pinata (the pull kind as most of the kids here were younger). We also converted a train table into a racetrack with some motorized cars and characters from the movie. There was never a dull moment!

Then we had various decor elements to round out the rest of the space..all car themed of course!

All in all it was a really fun party and all of the kids had a great time. It was wonderful to see my son's eyes light up when he saw his favorite movie come to life. All in all totally worth it and can't wait to see what strikes his fancy for next year!

Beaded Bonanza!

So you are almost done with all of the party details, when you get to the favors. One way to go, is to use a coordinating bag for all of the typical favor schwag...bubbles, stickers, and the like. Or you could do something a bit different.  Planning and putting together personalized, thoughtful favors really is the way to go when doing a party. In the past, when we focused the favor on the little party guest's interests, it seemed to go over much better (and less likely that the favor would end up in some junk drawer somewhere!). We stayed true to that when we whipped up these favors for a 4yo boy's birthday celebration, by putting together these adorable beading kits for the li'l girl guests.

We started by assembling some terrific ethically sourced beads (from women's artisan communities of course!). Coordinated by color, we creating a very fun collection of several sorts of beads that included wood, ceramic, glass, paper, bone and metal components. They were placed in a matching wood box with a very cheery pointillist patterned lid complete with elastic, findings and instructions.

The li'l girls loved what they got! The boy party guests received a collection of their favorite things (Legos for those blocks lovers, and car books for the automobile obsessed). Later, when I happened upon some of the party guests and saw them making use of these favors I knew our little gift hit just the right note.  Junk drawer beware.. you may not have many new friends to join you!

Start your engines!

My son simply loves the Pixar Cars movie. So, when his birthday came around this year, I knew we would be reviling in all things cars. Here is a little sneak peek...

I totally love the look of paper invites, but in our electronic age, they often are not very convenient for guests. So instead, I have taken to doing an initial Evite and then doing a paper invite/reminder card shortly prior to the party (especially handy the day of if someone doesn't have a smart phone but still needs the party address). This year, I thought a pit pass and raceway ticket would be super fun.

For the pit pass, I downloaded a few images from the movie and then added each little guests name. I then laminated it and clipped on a lanyard. My son was so in love with his that he didn't take it off for 3 days straight!  Then, I made the ticket using microsoft publisher and images from the movie. The ticket bar code was actually a QR code that directed each guest back to the Evite. Lastly, we crafted the signage for the party and shrunk it down to a smaller size so it could bind the elements together. To pull it all together, we bound the lanyard and ticket with some checkered ribbon and the Aiden is 3! circle. On the envelope, I completed the look by making return address labels with the piston cup logo.

Overall, it was great fun to make. And to see the look on my son's face when he saw his pit pass...it just melted my heart. KaChow!